Sunday column: Farm family fights utility land grab

The Krenzers aren’t battling against the usual farm problems. It isn’t the economy, competition or weather that worry them. Their problem is the Spanish company Iberdrola and a state regulatory process that treats land owners as an afterthought.

Here’s the situation: Iberdrola wants to build a massive substation and more on the Krenzers’ land in Chili, near Rochester, and the company spent 19 months winning the legal right to do so. But the Krensers say neither Iberdrola nor the state detailed the plan to them, even though it will involve acquiring family land by eminent domain.

“They’re about to take their property,” said David Dunning, the Chili supervisor, “and nobody bothered to tell them what they’re doing or how they’re going to do it. It reeks.” (Photo by Shawn Dowd/Democrat and Chronicle)